The Hockey Girl

Chapter 1

“Hey,” I heard Xavier shout through the locker room, “Turn the music down could you? I can’t even hear myself think!” I laughed aloud at my friend, he was right though, the music was absolutely blaring, just the way our captain – Tai – liked it.

“Suck it up Mr. Aleine, good for you that is.” Tai responded teasingly, with a rather playful grin on his face.

“Good for us?” Drew laughed. “More like guaranteed to make you deaf by twenty-two at the latest.” I glanced at Drew as he shouted over the roar of the music and noticed that he too was only teasing. Everyone on the team laughed, as we each put our shoes on and readied to walk from the team locker room. We’d just had a pretty good after school practise, with Coach Riviere drilling us. I had to admit that I was pretty tired. Having stayed up until one am this morning completing a history assignment probably didn’t help much.

“Hey, who’s up for a trip to the juice bar around the corner?” Riaz suggested, after he pressed pause on Tai’s iPod radio, causing Tai to frown.

“I’m up for it.” Came the automatic answer from Riaz’s twin brother Riordan. They were enforcers on our team, big, strong, capable and incredibly caring. They were great guys although completely intimidating before you got to know them. They weren’t identical twins and didn’t really look much alike aside from the height, build and hair. Both were over six foot, muscles standing out, but not to the point of overkill and had short brown mops for hair.

I heard a chorus of yes’ from the guys surrounding me in the locker room, but stayed silent, being more tired than I had expected.

“What about you Alara?” Nate questioned me, big smirk on his face. He was incredibly good looking. All of the boys on the ice hockey team were. But I thought of all of them as best friends, if not brothers. Except maybe for Nate, I’d always had a little crush on him. Not that I would ever tell anybody about it.

“Yeah,” I was shocked that even my voice sounded tired. “I got a ride to school with Vasic this morning though, so if he’s in, so am I.” I replied, smiling as well.

“Course I’m in.” Vas said, flicking his head in an attempt to move his mop of black hair out of his eyes.

“She’s just agreeing because she knows that even if she didn’t want to come along, we’d kidnap her anyway.” Lucas stated. He was right on one part, I did know that they would simply drag me along regardless, but wrong in thinking I didn’t want to go. I enjoyed hanging around with my best friends and these boys were them.

“Of course I want to go you big oaf.” I replied, shoving his shoulder lightly as he was sitting beside me. Riordan laughed heartily, walking over to where I sat.

“I’ll carry you to the car Princess Ali.” He thundered much louder than necessary as he picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder and began walking out of the school and to the parking lot.

The entire team laughed. I could hear Drew’s laugh in particular, he was in hysterics. I couldn’t quite determine why – as this occurred often. Both Riordan and Riaz did this, knowing that it annoyed me. I could never hold onto any anger for them though, they were like big brothers to me.

I slapped at Riordan’s back lightly, attempting to get him to put me down. “Ri... I’m finding it hard to breathe with your shoulder in my stomach.” I managed to get out as he walked through the doors that lead to the parking lot. I looked up from his back and saw the team behind us. “Help!” I pleaded to them. Joking of course, well mostly, I really was finding it hard to breathe.

“Good luck with that one Ali.” Vasic laughed and when he finished he wore a massive smirk. Some help he was.

“Oh come on Ali, I’m sure you’re enjoying the view.” Riordan teased, just as he hoisted me further over his shoulder, causing my face to end up quite close to his backside.